Dr. Shefali Pai-Samant

Principal

Dr. Shefali Pai-Samant has 15 years of experience in designing and conducting all phases of research studies including cross-cultural research studies, early childhood intervention programs evaluation, and needs assessments. She is an expert in adapting and developing child, parent, staff, and classroom measures; collecting data through in-person and telephone interviews, surveys, observations, and focus groups. Her other skills include training and certifying data collectors; recruiting and managing sampled sites; forming and supporting technical work groups; developing scientific coding frameworks and training research coders; analyzing qualitative and quantitative data; supervising the development, implementation, and management of information systems. She also writes progress and technical research reports and disseminated research through briefs, conference presentations, compendiums of child outcome measures, and web-based bibliographies and catalogs of early childhood research.

Dr. Pai-Samant has worked on more than 10 Head Start and child care research and national evaluation projects, including the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, The National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center, Head Start Research to Practice: Assessing Evidence-Based Head Start Program Activities, Head Start National Training and Technical Assistance System Quality Assurance Contract, Design Options for Studying Head Start Enhancement Efforts Through Planned Variation, and the Descriptive Study of Seasonal Farmworker Families. Dr. Pai-Samant oversees ICF’s early childhood education projects in India. She has a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in Human Development and Family Studies.